Newly Adopted Yorkie - Biting

[Sunnydey]

We just adopted a 1 1/2 year old Yorkie from our local shelter. He is doing fairly well with housetraining and is usually on pretty good, albeit hyper, behavior.

His main issue is biting. He is not biting in an aggressive manner rather it is more like play biting when he gets excited. He is biting our hands and feet. It especially hurts when he gets the toes! We have tried to get him to focus on appropriate chew toys when he is biting on us, but he finds us to be more fun. We have ignored him and made our hands into fists, so he could not bite our fingers. Nothing seems to work, and his biting is getting harder.

We will be attending training, but it does not start until the end of March. Our poor hands and feet need some help now. We are trying to train him using positive reinforcement techniques.

Any ideas for getting his focus off our hands and feet? Thanks for your help!

[ARCHIE]

First let me congratulate you on your new furbaby.
At this age he wouldn't be teething so I would just assume he
does not know otherwise.
You could try holding his beard (gently) when he bites you and say
No Biting in a firm voice. When he stops say good boy and reward him
with either a treat or stick one of his own toys in his mouth.
He'll get the picture in no time. Yorkies are very smart.
Patience is key. It may take a couple of days but it should work.
Or try using a can with some coins in it. Keep it handy and shake it
each time he bites. Sayin No Bite.
Good luck,
Welcome to YT too.

[patty58]

Yeah, that. Good luck. Welcome to yt. You will LOVE it here.

[KathyinCali]

Congratulations and thank you for adopting! We need more people like you. Just want to say hello and welcome

[Sunnydey]

Thanks for the advice and nice welcome!

Here's a picture of my new boy, Max:

[ARCHIE]

What a handsome fellow he is. Good luck again with the biting.

[shelbys_mom]

He is so cute!

[Maxi]

Congrats on your baby! What I found that worked for me is when he bites you make a sound like you are crying and make your hand limb. That will definitely get his attention and he ll stop wondering what had happened. Then ignore him for 10 seconds or so. He will know later that he hurt you and thats why you cry. This behavior you can see with animals playing. If they are playing to hard the other one will cry and they stop. My Maxi did the same thing to my hands until I started doing just what I described above.

[Charlies Angel]

Congrats and welcome to YT! You'll find lots of great information here and everyone here is so nice and helpful, it's amazing what all I have learned here. By the way Max is a doll!

[mickie]

Hi i also adopted my baby from a shelter hes about 2/3 years he was a stray so no knowledge of his background
Joe was play biting quite a lot until i did almost same as described before every time his teeth came to or touched my hands i would say ouch in a strong voice and ignore him and now its very rare even when excited he play bites me
Good luck with him hope you have as much reward as i have from Joe i have been so lucky with him saying hes from a shelter he no longer messes in the house plays with toys eats everything loves me to bits no problems
Joe is so loving he always wants to be cuddling with me i only had him 29 Jan this year

[Hooversmom]

Originally Posted by Sunnydey

Thanks for the advice and nice welcome!

Here's a picture of my new boy, Max:

Welcome to YT. He is so handsome. I love it here.

[Sunnydey]

I tried really hard over the weekend to get Max to quit biting so much when playing. I tried the crying and saying "ouch", but the silly guy thought I was playing and kept going after me even more. I tried to ignore him as well, but he kept biting my hands and feet and gnawing on them, which hurt. He thinks everything is a game, and I am a big squeaky toy.